On this day in history

Source: HistoryNet.com

1516: The Hapsburg Charles I succeeds Ferdinand in Spain.
1540: Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado begins his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest.
1836: The Alamo is besieged by Santa Anna.
1846: The Liberty Bell tolls for the last time, to mark George Washington's birthday.
1861: Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union.
1921: An airmail plane sets a record of 33 hours and 20 minutes from San Francisco to New York.
1926: President Calvin Coolidge opposes a large air force, believing it would be a menace to world peace.
1938: Twelve Chinese fighter planes drop bombs on Japan.
1942: A Japanese submarine shells an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California, the first Axis bombs to hit American soil.
1945: U.S. Marines plant an American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
1947: Several hundred Nazi organizers are arrested in Frankfurt by U.S. and British forces.
1950: New York's Metropolitan Museum exhibits a collection of Hapsburg art. The first showing of this collection in the U.S.
1954: Mass innoculation begins as Salk's polio vaccine is given to children for the first time.
1955: Eight nations meet in Bangkok for the first SEATO council.
1967: American troops begin the largest offensive of the war, near the Cambodian border.
1972: Black activist Angela Davis is released from jail where she was held for kidnapping, conspiracy and murder.
1991: French forces unofficially start the Persian Gulf ground war by crossing the Saudi-Iraqi border.